A close look at Sunday’s polls in Punjab and UP - Hindustan Times
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A close look at Sunday’s polls in Punjab and UP

ByAbhishek Jha
Feb 21, 2022 05:57 AM IST

With voting taking place in 176 assembly constituencies on Sunday, the third phase was the biggest among the seven stages of the ongoing state elections

With voting taking place in 176 assembly constituencies on Sunday, the third phase was the biggest among the seven stages of the ongoing state elections. Of the five states going to polls in the current election cycle, polling concluded in Uttarakhand and Goa on February 14. Only two of the five states – all 117 seats in Punjab and 59 in Uttar Pradesh – voted on February 20. Polling will now take place in 60 constituencies in Manipur and 231 of 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh by March 7. Here are four charts that put Sunday’s election in context.

Polling officials collecting the Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) and other necessary inputs required for the Punjab Assembly Election, at a distribution centre, in Amritsar.(ANI)
Polling officials collecting the Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) and other necessary inputs required for the Punjab Assembly Election, at a distribution centre, in Amritsar.(ANI)

PUNJAB

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The turnout in Punjab until 11.45pm was 68.5%, according to the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Voter Turnout App. This is 8.6 percentage points lower than the turnout of 77.1% in 2017. To be sure, the turnout for past elections is based on the number of registered electors and valid votes polled. The current election’s turnout data is provisional, and approximate.

Demographic composition of different regions

Because of new electoral formations, the polls on Sunday were different from recent elections in Punjab. However, they can be analysed by following the pattern of the state’s demography and the trends in its recent elections. For example, Sikhs (61%) and Hindus (35.8%) make up the majority of the state’s population, according to the 2015-16 National Family Health Survey, but they are not evenly distributed.

Among the three regions the Trivedi Centre for Political Data classifies the state into, Hindus and Sikhs are roughly equal in number only in Doaba (23 seats), with Sikhs greatly outnumbering Hindus in Majha (25 constituencies) and Malwa (69 seats). Therefore, although the share of scheduled castes (SCs) – the biggest caste group – is roughly equal across regions, in Doaba, Hindu SCs outnumber Sikh SCs.

Hindus or Sikhs who don’t belong to the SC, Scheduled Tribe, or Other Backward Class (OBC) groups make up 44% of the state’s population. They don’t vary as much across regions as SCs. OBCs, the third biggest caste group, have a slightly smaller share in Majha, but Sikh OBCs in particular have a slightly bigger share in the region.

How have parties performed across regions in recent elections?

Among the three regions of the state, the Congress has remained the steadiest in its performance since 2014 in Doaba, although it has not won by big margins. It does not necessarily mean that it is on a weak footing in other regions. In both Majha and Malwa, it faced big reversals in 2014, but came back with a big majority in the former in the elections thereafter.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the former main opponent of the Congress, relied on its former ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Doaba and Majha regions, with more Hindu and Sikh OBC concentration. This is a likely reason why on February 20 the BJP contested about 70% of the constituencies in these two regions and gave the rest to its allies. In Malwa, it contested only about 40% of the seats.

What about SAD? Its best performance in 2017 came in the Doaba region, which has the least number of seats. In Majha, it has lost seat share in each successive election since 2014. Yet, it gave the most 10 seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), its ally, in Doaba, and 10 in total in the rest of the state. This is likely because Doaba is the only region the BSP has continued to poll votes, although it hasn’t won any seats since 1997.

Unlike its opponents, the newest entrant in the state, the Aam Admi Party (AAP), has been more consistent in Malwa than any other region so far. This is one of the regions where Sikh SCs have a high share, among whom the party has had consistent support, according to post poll surveys by CSDS-Lokniti. The party had also won two assembly segments in the Doaba region in 2014 and 2017.

UTTAR PRADESH

Turnout in the 59 assembly constituencies of Uttar Pradesh that voted on Sunday was 61.6%, according to provisional data by the Election Commission of India as of 11.45pm on Sunday. It was 0.8 percentage points lower than the 2017 turnout of 62.4%.

In terms of poverty, the region voting on Sunday reflects the state...

Sunday’s voting in Uttar Pradesh took place across 16 districts with 59 seats. Five of these districts that account for 14 constituencies are in the Bundelkhand region and the remaining are in the Doab region. Although Bundelkhand is known to be a poor region, only three of the very poor districts of the region (Lalitpur, Hamirpur, and Mahoba) voted on Sunday and are individually not as poor by asset position of their population as Kannauj and Kanpur Dehat in Doab.

On the other hand, districts such as Kanpur Nagar and Jhansi, which also voted Sunday, have a much lower share of poor people compared to the state average. In aggregate, the Sunday’s voting region resembles the state of Uttar Pradesh, with roughly the same share of population (around 52%) in the bottom two asset quintiles.

 

…as well as the past performance of the BJP and SP

Since 2014, the BJP has been dominant in the assembly segments of this phase, as it has been in the state overall. It won 78% of the seats of this phase in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 83% in the 2017 assembly election. Among its opponents, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has won almost all of the remaining seats, whether it was fighting in an alliance or not. In that respect at least, this phase is likely to be a contest between these parties’ strengths rather than with the aid of allies.

How does their performance here compare with the state? It has not been different in the past two elections. In the last assembly election, the strike rate of the BJP and SP was 1.02 times and 1.04 times the state average, which changed only to 1.11 times and 1.22 times in 2019.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Abhishek Jha is a data journalist. He analyses public data for finding news, with a focus on the environment, Indian politics and economy, and Covid-19.

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